What is Freudian Transference and why does it matter?
This article is intended to clarify the concept of Transference that is intrinsic to the craft of psychoanalysis. While the language and concepts used might be inaccessible for readers unfamiliar with psychoanalytic literature, students of psychoanalysis might find it useful for understanding the fundamental principles of Transference. As such, this essay will focus on the techniques involved with concept of Transference which are drawn primarily from the Freudian publications with additional reference to the Lacanian conceptualisation where appropriate. The conceptual underpinnings of transference, including its mechanisms and dynamics, will be discussed initially. Next, the Handling of transference will be elaborated upon first in a general sense, then by its handling and significance in the case of Transference Love. Finally, a brief reference to the handling technique involved in Rogerian Person-Centred Therapy and Jungian Analysis will be made. Throughout the essay an attempt will be made to illustrate how Transference and its analytic technique are something of an autology; the clinical application is the example of its theory par excellence.
Transference
In Transference, Freud states that the model on which the infantile phantasy is predicated upon becomes sublimated; is observed in the in the dynamic of analysis is a revival of earlier phantasies played out onto the person of the analyst. The attachment of the phantasy model to the real analyst may be based on the occurrence of a similar feature between the two; however this is not exclusively necessary for the analyst to suffice as a substitution for that original model. What this implies however, is that this sublimation represents a copy of the original phantasy (Freud, 1905).
The primary objects of infantile phantasies (also referred to as Imagos) that are 'copied' in the sublimation are given the metaphor of 'stereotype plates' by Freud (Freud, 1905; Freud, 1912). The mechanism of these stereotype plates refers to renewability of innate dispositions and influences that affect us during infantile life, which are further applied to the object of Transference. These instinctual imagos are suggested to form during the variation of phases in sexual development which culminate at the resolution of castration; as such the stereotype plates are inherently erotic in their constitution, yet not exclusively so in the aim (Freud, 1912; Ferrell, 2006). Components of these templates remain repressed and unconscious despite their exertion on the character of the subject through each encounter. Freud attributes the ubiquity of Transference both in patient and 'normal' persons to their underlying capability of casting libidinal object-cathexis to other persons, yet what is observed in clinical neuroticism is an exaggeration of this ubiquitous characteristic (Freud, 1917). Freud theorised that to the extent that a person’s unconscious need for love is repeatedly unsatisfied in reality, then by consequence there is an anticipation that their libidinal needs will be met by every new individual that they encounter (Freud, 1912).
This anticipatory phantasy could arguably find its equivalent in the Lacanian distinction, prior to analysis the onset of Transference is said to occur as soon as there is a "subject who is supposed to know" (Gallagher, 1995 p.12). The supposition is related to the idea of a patient expecting there is a knowledgeable other existing somewhere, and does not necessarily have to designate a certain person. Lacan states what the analyst is "supposed to know" is signification (Lacan 1981. p.253), or more simply, a meaning. The concept of supposed knowledge does not reflect the actual knowledge of the eventual analyst. The actual analyst cannot know what the meaning of signification in the analysand’s speech (Fink, 2009).
Additionally, the unsatisfied libidinal cathexis does not necessarily attach from a singular prototypical imago to a real relation of a subject. What this means, for example, is that suitable aspects of unconscious psychical representations of a mother, brother or sister could be transferred onto the singular subject of the Analyst (Freud, 1912). The analyst is what Lacan refers to as the "object of transference" (Lacan, 1981. p.130). Thus, this attitude toward the doctor, Freud stated, is likely to be formed on both conscious and unconscious anticipatory aspects of the patients' libido. By this, Freud infers that Transference can have two functions; being the strong factor of successful analysis and being strongest mode of resistance (Freud 1912). Lacan highlights how the manifestation of the transference poses an interruption of the access to unconscious (Lacan, 1981. p.130), in this regard transference is most saliently a resistance in the analytic setting
Through following the free-associations in the therapeutic work, there will be an anti-cathexis arising from the regressive forces of the libido which function as a resistance to uncovering the repressed templates of the subject. Freud argued this resistance will be met at every association throughout the treatment (Freud, 1912).
Lacan asks that when the nature of transference is in question, to remember that "psychoanalysis is a dialectical experience" (Lacan, 2006. p.177), by this he refers to an intersubjective dialogue between the analysand and analyst, yet it is the presence of the latter who affords this dialogue dimension to the analysand subjects' discourse. Gueguen (1995. P.82) gives the example of an analysand who wishes to show the doctor that they are a 'good person’. If this demand is met by silence from the analyst in place of the Other, so as not to play their game, the speech transposed to this Other will circle back to the analysand. The analyst here is functioning as an opaque silent mirror to establish the situation by which the analysand can recognize their own signifiers (Gueguen, 1995; Bailly, 2012).
It is further argued that in the analytical context, the supposition of knowing is such a necessity that without it a person will not speak in therapy and shortly will not attend. Implicit in this is that, to a certain degree, the analyst is also dependent on the transference occurring (Gueguen, 1995. p.80). The analyst has to wait for the transference to provide an interpretation; the presence of an analyst in the mind of an analysand is in itself a manifestation of the unconscious that has opened up prior to the analysis (Lacan, 1981. P 125). For Lacan this meant the analyst’s supposed knowledge over the unconscious is transposed to the Other, as the Other is always present at every opening of the unconscious (Lacan, 1981 p.130). If the analytic dialect is interfered or become stagnant, Interpretation serves to lure this stagnation into movement (Lacan, 2006. P.184)
Lacan goes further to state that the analyst should not appeal to the subject’s ego by pointing out to their misattribution of certainty of the analyst, as it is the ego which is responsible for closing up access to the unconscious. This closing is emphasized to be decisive moment of interpretation (Lacan 1981. p.131) as this will be the moment either the analysand’s aim will be met or the analyst’s aim will be thwarted.
Handling Transference
Several considerations are advised by Freud in the handling of the Transference. Firstly, nothing in the conduct of the doctor should justify these feelings from the patient, be they hostile or affectionate (Freud, 1917). Similarly, the affectionate impulses are argued to be prefabricated within the patient and transposed onto the doctor, as their readiness for displacement, coincides with the on-going analytic situation and do not originate from it (Freud, 1917). Put simply, the analyst can manage the transference by clarifying to the patient that their feelings firstly don’t apply to them, nor do their feelings spring from the therapeutic relationship, but that the patient is repeating of an affect relating to a prior relationship.
In doing so the patient is required to convert this behavioural repeating into something remembered (Freud, 1917). By adhering to free-association the patient is likely to succeed in recognizing the transference which affords a replacement of their original neurosis with a transference neurosis (Freud, 1914). What Freud suggests by this is that the illness which the patient had originally sought treatment for goes through developments in the analysis, if the treatment can be effective over the patient then their prior illnesses may become concentrated on the relationship with the analyst. This intermediary area allows a newer meaning and substitution of symptoms in regard to the transference to emerge which both analyst and patient can master, via interpretation, in the hopes of patient traversing from illness to 'normal' life (Freud, 1914; Freud, 1917).
The theoretical importance of transference in Psychoanalysis is that it is posited to be the apotheosis of suggestion; without the presence of transference, be it positive or negative, a patient would not begin to adhere to the direction of the analyst (Freud, 1917). As such transference can be made serviceable to the treatment due to the inherent attachment toward the analyst (Freud 1914), the task for the analyst here is to exploit the positive adherence for compelling the patient to remember, to speak and bring the unconscious material to conscious, rather than through their impulsion of repetitive action. However, it is firstly required to admit the 'compulsion to repeat' to freely expand in a manner (via free-association) that lets the pathogenic instincts within it to become apparent to the analyst (Freud, 1914). The role of the client for this and any emergence of resistance is to become increasingly knowledgeable with it by freely associating from it.
Negative Affects
The transference may take on a more insidious affect, such as revenge. Freud argues that patient’s reluctance to follow treatment and thus maintain their symptoms can be seen as an act that is unconsciously aimed to undermine the physician’s capability (Freud 1905). The classical example that Freud illustrates this phenomenon is that of a patient who will not declare that they were critical of their parents during childhood but will instead display critical behaviours to the analyst, and will be unaware of the latent compulsions within this behaviour (Freud, 1914). In this regard, the analyst’s involvement in transference and its mishandling are clear in the case of Dora. Freud partially attributes the failure of the case to himself for not realizing the degree of which Dora’s dream of leaving Herr K’s house was representing a displacement of her attitude onto Freud himself. Dora’s leaving analysis is a clear illustration of her phantasy being repeated and acted out rather than being reproduced and treated (Freud, 1905). For Lacan the failure of Freud’s analysis with Dora has value as the dialectical relations are tied to Transference, specifically a negative transference; Freud makes Dora take responsibility to for her complicity in an intimate exchange with Herr K that she claimed to be offended by. Lacan states that it was a synthesis of this attribution and how Freud, by taking up the position of knowing with this attribution, was unaware of Dora’s personal investment that inevitably failed the case (Lacan, 2006. p.178).
Transference-Love
In the instance of Transference-love, resistance can function under the disguise of patients being in love with the analyst. This may be evident in the analysis as a literal demand on behalf of the patient who aims to achieve an affirmation of affection from the Analyst. However, this transference-love is not created by the resistance but rather that these resistances, Freud (1915) states, can 'make use' of the unconscious reproduction of infantile prototypes of erotic life to interfere with the continuation of the work; by either challenging the analyst’s professional credibility or to provoke them into gratifying the patient’s wish to be seen as irresistible (Freud, 1915).
Freud (1915) highlights the detriments to the treatment that the course of the transference-love relationship can have if the patient’s aim is achieved; fundamentally the treatment of analysis will become defeated, the infantile desires would repeat and be acted out rather than strictly be remembered as a psychical event. Alternative to this outcome, it is cautioned that the patient’s tendency for repression may intensify if reactions to pathological erotic life are continued without correction. To counter these possibilities, Freud (1915) states that it is the analyst’s aim which must be achieved. This aim in handling the transference-love involves treating it as an unreal situation of purely psychical material. Through interpretation, the unconscious primary processes of the 'imagos' are to be traced by the patient and brought into their conscious at the analyst’s control.
The analyst is also recommended to neither reject the transference-love completely, to the point of totally ignoring it, nor to cast the patient’s desire for love as distastefully reproachable as aspects of the persistent desiring in transference may be attached to the forces compelling the patient to engage in the psychoanalytic work (Freud, 1915). The acknowledgement of transference to be treated keeps the analyst’s approach neutral, by neither gratifying the patient’s aim nor suppressing it, in a state of abstinence.
Uncovering the resistance does not always guarantee that they will be overcome, but Freud hoped that this could be achieved by exploiting the transference the patient has made to the analyst; for the purpose of inducing them to adopt the analyst’s belief that both that luxuriating in repressive processes and conducting life based on the pleasure principle are inconvenient, if not impossible (Freud, 1919). Treatment being conducted in a state of abstinence was not a literal reference to the lack of sexual intercourse, while this is technically true. Freud (1915) was referring to a means of maintaining a way that a patient will endeavour to peruse a fuller recovery; But because a patient receives a substitute satisfaction from their symptoms, the progression of treatment and alleviation of symptoms is thus inversely correlated with a reduction in the same driving force that compels a patient to recover. In this regard premature curtailment of treatment as a response to the transference act is advised against, the abstinence re-instates something of pathogenic frustration that prevents a stagnation during improvement (Freud, 1919). It is posited that when illness has been treated with analysis, newer substitutes of phantasies, devoid of actual suffering and symptom, are made by the patient, and this can manifest as the patient’s transference (Freud, 1919). Likewise, this literal demand must remain unfulfilled as it subverts the patient’s ability to find strength conducting life and fulfilling their own nature (Freud, 1919). The aim of the abstinence is to frustrate the expectation of the patient and cause a questioning of the implied nature of the demand. However, it is not to literally frustrate the patient (such as criticism) otherwise analysts place themselves in the position of the superego (Gueguen, 1995. p.84). With this questioning, the therapeutic aims offer the psychical material an exposure to reality, allowing for modification of the influence behind both the experience and the pathways that the libidinal cathexes have been fashioned in (Ferrell, 2006. p.52).
Freud inferred that Transference Love could be considered as genuine as 'normal' love (outside of the artificiality of the analytical situation) as both experiences find their genesis in the directing of the libido. Albeit for the latter love, the pathogenic aspect is not granted the same careful indulgence as a vehicle for treatment in "ordinary life" as it is in analysis (Ferrell, 2006. pp.49-51). While the patient’s avowal of genuine affection in transference-love may be utilized as a primary agent for facilitating analytic change as posited by Freud, in the Lacanian theory however this 'love' is considered deceptive as it is inherently narcissistic; the person who supposes knowledge is implicitly making the assumption that the receiver of love can compensate for what they the analysand is lacking (Gallagher, 1995. p.12). Furthermore by instantiating the effect of transference as 'love' in the narcissistic field, Lacan suggests that the love is a wish for being loved, hence the proclamation of love also has a function of interrupting what is to be revealed through analysis. The ulterior function of this 'love effect' of the transference reveals itself as a deception, which continuously isolates all subjects by interfering with the analysand’s' symbolic relations being brought to the fore (Lacan, 1981. pp.253 – 254).
It is stated that one of the characteristics of Transference Love is that it lacks "a high degree in a regard for reality" (Freud, 1915), yet the way the patient re-enacts or imagines their past in the current relationship is argued to articulate a truth-effect of the speaking subject, even if the content or actuality of what is said is an overt lie; the act of Transference itself betrays an insight of the actual past, the risk of the analyst accepting any demand is the risk of reinforcing templates of jouissance (Gueguen, 1995. p.81). Here another example persists in which transference-love then is not to be seen as true love, but as Freud refers to it as "a facsimile" (Freud, 1905) of a past relationship to historic others that emerge in analysis
Person Centred Transference
Mearns (2002. p.57) states that the transference process in Person-Centred Therapy poses only a superficial relational interference to the therapy. This is one of many ways the Person-Centred approach to transference starkly differs to Freudian and Lacanian Psychoanalysis. Firstly, Carl Rogers formulates transference as an 'attitude' which occurs in the majority of cases yet does not stipulate every case. Secondly, he assumes that the nature of the transference is of 'reality’. By this he clarifies that this reality can relate to the inherent apprehension of client in their first therapy session, such as annoyance from the session not being what they expected. Lastly, Rogers disavows the transposition of unconscious infantile attitudes toward an other in his working definition of Transference (Rogers, 2012). From this it is difficult to see how this conceptualization compares as the affectations toward the therapist seem to convey only what is conscious to the client.
Rogers does attest that the therapist is to be de-personalized through which the client’s relationship is conceptually with their 'other self' (Rogers, 2012. p 208). Comparison to the Lacanian analyst as being opaque cannot be made here as there is an emphasis placed on the Rogerian therapist to convey a warm willingness for acceptance to occur. Acceptance in this approach means not conveying judgement to the client, but for the client to recognize the feelings they perceive towards the therapist are only in the client themselves. Albeit in modern theory, the Person-Centred therapist may presume they have unwittingly stoked a transference process with their statements or behaviour (Mearns, 2002. p.59). Without criticism from the therapist, Rogers argues that there is no purchase for the transference projection to hang onto (Rogers, 2012. p203).
What might be construed as a handling of transference is Re-education; the client is the sole evaluator of their perceived judgements they belief the therapist holds against them. Once the client is re-educated that there is no past evidence of the therapist judging them, that their evaluation is not supported, then the transference attitude is said to simply disappear without displacement or sublimation (Rogers, 2012. p.210).
Jungian Transference
In Jungian Analysis the concept of Transference again differs greatly from the Classical Psychoanalytic conception. Carl Jung conceptualised the Temenos of analysis, which can be briefly defined as both a literal and symbolic private space in which both the analysand and analyst’s entre of personality are protected, specifically when meeting the impersonal contents of the client’s Collective Unconscious. This protection is achieved through the technique of objectivation in order to consciously detach from unfavourable influences.
However, the Jungian therapeutic relationship is inherently susceptible to transference also; a responsibility is thus placed on the analyst for consciously upholding boundaries but to also maintain the activity of their own conscious and unconscious to establish this protective space (Hall, 1986). The proximity of the space also symbolises the effect for analysis, whereby an optimal range is that which neither distances the Analyst from the analysand’s material nor close enough to break transference boundaries.
Jung suggested that all people have a complex of ‘Saviour’ archetypal images. This impersonal image is projected onto the analyst that further requires careful handling, for which Jung suggests is to dissolve the act of the projection as the image itself cannot be dissolved (Jung 1935/2004).
However, this is not to say a Jungian analyst is not influenced by occurrences within the temenous, but because it resides deep in the Collective Unconscious the transference/countertransference field requires the analyst to engage in disciplined attention from being immersed in the stream of an analysand’s personal experience (Hall, 1986)
A patient engaging in transference is activating an archetype; caution is required to differentiate these impersonal factors from the personal analytical relations - as both parties are in the midst of religious history as much they are present. For this reason Jung argued that analysts themselves should receive analysis to be objectively in touch with the emergences of their own unconscious, lest the danger of participating in a mutual unconscious may arises e.g. an inability to discriminate between subject and object.
Conclusion
This essay began by highlighting how Transference is tied to the repression, when remembering the past orientation toward an imago is no longer possible. Next, it was elaborated how in analysis the forgotten past is acted out without conscious memory. By evaluating transference through a Freudian lens, it has been shown how an advantage of the clinical dynamic lends credence to the theory of newer editions of past impulses toward others, and the consequential fantasies associated with them, repeating in the present (Gueguen, p.80). These ancient psychical structures are given a context of lived human experience through the present analytical situation (Ferrell, 2006. p.53). The Lacanian distinction was introduced to illustrate how anticipatory phantasies are instrumental in the onset of transference and may arguably influence how people’s readiness for supposition makes some patients more susceptible to the techniques and effect of analysis, treatment and interpretation.
Also highlighted was the client’s imparting of transference, positive, loving or negative is not the analyst’s achievement but as a necessary consequence of the analytic treatment situation, hence an analyst should be cautious in not deriving personal satisfaction from it, but to take careful advantage of favourable affects for directing the technique of analysis and interpretation thoroughly. The handling and mishandling of technique has been shown throughout to have various consequences and risk.
Finally, the Rogerian conceptualisation scarcely compares to Freudian transference, both in definition and handling. While Roger’s does capitulate some similarity beyond the name alone, the differences outweigh the similarity to almost complete technical incompatibility. The Jungian analytic model of transference and its handling are predicated upon the specific conceptualisation that are heavily distinguished from both the classical Freudian and Lacanian model of psychoanalysis which requires further reading of Jungian literature for full comprehension.
References
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